TAS began as an idea for a small residential, martial arts based program in rural Bucks County Pennsylvania and has evolved into a small intensive high school with a classic liberal arts curriculum.
We work from several assumptions that we believe are strongly justified in light of our success in graduating healthy, optimistic, community oriented students.
1) Strong relationships with a variety of adults improves a teenager’s judgment and quality of life and improves the student’s relationship with his or her family.
2) Rules are no substitute for these relationships. Strong relationships built on trust and effective problem solving, are what motivates teenagers to work hard, try new things, and become emotionally open. Too many rules shift adult-student relationship to a custodial, rather than mutual, relationship.
3) These mutual relationships are also the basis for intellectual growth and challenge. Without support such risks are unjustified from the point of view of the student
4) Students of differing abilities and backgrounds contribute to each other’s growing interpersonal sophistication. Having such a variety also underscores each students actual uniqueness.
5) A small school (of 25-50 students) can be a coherent community in a way that larger entities can never be. Human organizations tend to self organize into groups of approximately that size. Consider small companies, extended families, military platoons, and circles of friends.
6) By anchoring a small community in a simple set of practices, expectations are clear, as are the means for meeting those expectations. Students are slowly and gently taught how to be aware of
themselves, how to regulate themselves, and how to accommodate the needs of others. Meditation and mindfulness training are key to this.
7) There is usually one adult for every five students. An important implication of this is that students do not set the tone at the school. Instead, older students are highly trusting of the teachers and role model this trust to the younger students. This enculturation makes it possible to reach students quickly and effectively, both academically and emotionally.
8) The rich support and simple structure of TAS allows us to be very responsive to a wide variety of students: ADHD, Depression, autistic spectrum, recovering drug abuse, sexual abuse, trauma, family chaos, developmental delays, generally unhappiness, and all types of school frustration and failure.
We work from several assumptions that we believe are strongly justified in light of our success in graduating healthy, optimistic, community oriented students.
1) Strong relationships with a variety of adults improves a teenager’s judgment and quality of life and improves the student’s relationship with his or her family.
2) Rules are no substitute for these relationships. Strong relationships built on trust and effective problem solving, are what motivates teenagers to work hard, try new things, and become emotionally open. Too many rules shift adult-student relationship to a custodial, rather than mutual, relationship.
3) These mutual relationships are also the basis for intellectual growth and challenge. Without support such risks are unjustified from the point of view of the student
4) Students of differing abilities and backgrounds contribute to each other’s growing interpersonal sophistication. Having such a variety also underscores each students actual uniqueness.
5) A small school (of 25-50 students) can be a coherent community in a way that larger entities can never be. Human organizations tend to self organize into groups of approximately that size. Consider small companies, extended families, military platoons, and circles of friends.
6) By anchoring a small community in a simple set of practices, expectations are clear, as are the means for meeting those expectations. Students are slowly and gently taught how to be aware of
themselves, how to regulate themselves, and how to accommodate the needs of others. Meditation and mindfulness training are key to this.
7) There is usually one adult for every five students. An important implication of this is that students do not set the tone at the school. Instead, older students are highly trusting of the teachers and role model this trust to the younger students. This enculturation makes it possible to reach students quickly and effectively, both academically and emotionally.
8) The rich support and simple structure of TAS allows us to be very responsive to a wide variety of students: ADHD, Depression, autistic spectrum, recovering drug abuse, sexual abuse, trauma, family chaos, developmental delays, generally unhappiness, and all types of school frustration and failure.
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